A Working Day
by amitai
Summary: John and Helen Rider escaped Scorpia, and lived. John still works for MI6... but now he has bigger problems to deal with. Like, this Take Your Child to Work Day, for Father and Son, arranged by Alex's school. Chaos, anyone?
1. Chapter 1

So... here I am with a brand new story, and, boy, am I excited about that.

No, really. Can't you hear it in my voice?

Basically, this idea's been brewing in my head for ages now, literally, about two months, but it requires some... imagination on your parts. You see, John and Helen Rider lived, which I know is gonna be a bit difficult for some people to swallow. Yeah, I could have done it with Ian, but I wanted to do an AU Alex Rider. I've never done one of them. Plus, if we're into initials here, and most of us seem to be, what with OOC, AU, etc, if I wrote an Alex Rider AU, I'd technically be doing an AU AR.

Sorry. I'm easily distracted.

Well, here's chapter one of how Alex, aged seven, took on MI6, and won.

Or, alternatively, how much chaos can one small child cause? Hint: if his name is Alex Rider? A _hell_ of a lot.

DISCLAIMER: Any characters who bear any vague resemblance to anything which Anthony Horowitz wrote are probably mine. Because, the way I've written them, his characters are so out of character, he wouldn't recognise them. Just for closure, though, let's reinforce the obvious, shall we? Because, unfortunately, some bast... really nasty person already bought the film rights, and Anthony Horowitz isn't sellin' the book rights any time soon.

* * *

John Rider was generally an excellent morning person. In his job, not immediately being ready for anything immediately after you woke up was a massive, massive downside, and John had been doing his job for too many years not to be excellent at it.

However, when he was at home, with his small family, he hated getting undue surprises early in the morning. It was due to the separation he liked to keep between his family and his job; early-morning surprises were things he got when he was working. With his family, things went along a smooth pattern. He got up, he went downstairs, Helen made him a tea, he got himself some cereal, or toast. His seven year old son, Alex, thumped his way downstairs, dragging his school backpack, generally with a question about homework.

John was far from stupid, but sometimes he found it difficult to keep up with Alex. For one thing, the three years they had spent travelling around Europe before Scorpia finished with them had left their mark on Alex, and he was as liable to come down chattering in Polish as he was in English. Alex had a gift for languages, and John and his family had spent at least six months in Poland – as well as France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Alex had been a precocious child, and he had quickly cottoned on to the language changes, picking them up as he went along. John himself was fluent in three other languages, but Alex could speak at least French and Spanish flawlessly, and it would be difficult to distinguish him from a German, or an Italian, or even a Pole, from his accent alone. John found his son's rapid-fire changes from language to language exhausting.

This morning, Alex was talking in French, bantering light-heartedly with his mother. John watched the pair of them, fondly. Alex and Helen were alike in temperament, if not in looks; both were patient, extremely intelligent, and had a lively sense of humour. On the other hand, Alex looked overwhelmingly like his father, right down to the habit the both had of quirking their mouths to one side when they were amused, or thinking.

"_Viens ici_." John commanded, grinning, and Alex gave him a quick hug, before resuming his conversation with his mother, flashing his dad a smile every now and then.

Absently, with half his attention on Alex and Helen's conversation, John flicked through the post. A bill, a postcard for Helen, something from Yassen, which he'd have to open in the office, another bill, yet another bill, something from Alex's school, a bank… wait. Something from Alex's school?

He tore open the envelope.

_Take your Children to Work!_ It read, in bright red letters across the top.

John frowned.

_This is an excellent opportunity for father-child bonding. A large percentage of fathers find that they are not as involved with their children as their wives are, and we, at the Sacré Coeur Prep. School, think that this is a wonderful chance for children to get an insight into their fathers' adult world, and a chance for you, as a father, to get a little closer to your child…_

John put the letter down, then picked it up again, and looked at the date suggested for the bloody scheme.

He swore, softly, and Helen shot him a sharp look. Wordlessly, he handed it to her.

"_Putain_." She swore herself, apparently without thinking about it, still thinking in French, but distracted by the letter.

"_Qu'est-ce que c'est_?" Alex piped up, and she laid an absent hand on his head, ruffling his hair.

"_Rien, Alex._" She broke into English again. "Sweetheart, could you just run upstairs for me? I need my diary; I think it's on my bedside table. You couldn't just run and get it for me? I know it's in my bedroom somewhere"

"OK." He nodded, seriously, and ran off.

Helen looked at John, and he stared back at her. "Well, we haven't sent a reply saying we won't do it, so they'll assume that we will." She pointed out. "And it's not like we've got time to send one now, or hire a sitter to look after Alex for the day. How did it come so late? We live three streets away from the school."

"Can't you take him with you?" He pleaded.

"I'm on surgery duty today, John. I sincerely doubt that you'd want a child like ours in a surgery, and there's hardly anywhere else I can leave him in a hospital. I love him to bits, but he's hardly the calmest of children, is he? And he gets in and out of trouble faster than you do, _and_ leaves more devastation behind him. No." she said, decisively, folding the letter up, and placing it on the table. "You'll have to take him with you. You'll be doing deskwork all day, so it's not like he's going to find out some dread secret about the Ukrainian Government, is it?"

John put his head in his hands. "Oh, I am going to look like such an idiot today." He moaned. Helen smiled, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sure you'll get by. He's a nice kid, John, and he's bright and likeable, and people like him when they meet him…"

"It's the idea of him meeting the people I work with that scares me. What if he meets Halton? I know he's my boss, and everything, but that man is an opportunist. He meets a kid like Alex – bright, multilingual, karate-trained, and all that other stuff – well, he'll be going on missions with me quicker than you can say 'unfair'. What about Alan Blunt? That man may well be a brilliant analyst, but he's as ruthless as they come; I wouldn't trust him with a child any further than I could throw him. And he's a big man. Or how about Tulip Jones? She's still mourning the loss of her kids, six years later. Meeting Alex might be the last straw for her. And what if Alex guesses that there's something up? Like you said, he's bright. Any of these things could spark a complete disaster."

"Don't be such a wet blanket." Helen laughed. "Everything will be fine."

"_And_ I'll be the laughing stock of the entire office. Honestly – turning up with a seven-year-old. Me! MI6's finest agent! With a small child in tow!" he was starting to sound a little hysterical. "I'll never live it down. They'll call me 'the babysitter' from now until I retire."

"Oh, arrange something with Halton." Helen mock-snapped. "Tell him that you don't want to let anyone think that Alex will be a weak point with you, and say that he's about to go into care, or something, that he's a throwover from your last mission. Weren't you helping Yassen with those kids being held hostage in Warsaw? Well, tell Alex he's to speak Polish all day, for practice, and let everyone think he's one of them."

Unfortunately, both Helen and John forgot how much Alex looked like John.

Until, that is, Alex walked in, and handed his diary to his mum.

Thoughtfully, with a hint of worry in his voice, John said, putting a hand on Alex's head, and rubbing a few of the strands between his fingers, "Hel – we're going to need hair dye."

Helen bit her lip. "Yes. Oh, dear."

* * *

John was a little late to work that day. Alex, who at least half understood that his daddy did something dangerous, and had spent three years of his young life being told to do strange things like not speak at all to anyone except his parents, or in nothing but Spanish, was hardly phased by the instruction that he had to speak Polish for a day. It wasn't like he couldn't have done that standing on his head, and he'd have probably lapsed into a different language at some point in the day anyway. 

Helen had run out and bought some brown hair dye, and John had helped his son put it in, and now Alex looked perfectly nondescript. Brown hair, brown eyes, average tan, average height, boring clothes. There was nothing to distinguish him from a hundred other seven year olds. And he looked nothing like John; it was strange how much hair colour could do.

With a mental sigh, John headed up to Sir Michael Halton's office, passing the various security checks, and allowing Alex to be given a tag to where round his neck, with a tracker in it, so they could find him. John handed over his ID, but Alex had to be scanned for weapons. When they were both found to be clean, they were waved through.

John knocked, then muttered to Alex. "Don't say a word, OK, Alex? I'll do all the talking, right?"

"_Tak_." Alex nodded, solemnly, and John took a few seconds to remember all his earlier edicts about talking in Polish.

A muffled 'come in!' drifted through the reinforced wood door – John took a deep breath, and opened the door.

"Ah, John." Halton nodded, and John allowed himself a tiny, almost infinitesimal smile. It wasn't like Halton hadn't known exactly who he was.

"Michael." He nodded, by way of greeting. "This is my son, Alex." Halton nodded stiffly at the seven-year-old, who stared at him, fascinated.

Michael Halton turned his cold, blue eyes back onto John. "Why, exactly, is he here?"

"Oh, er…" John shifted, a little uncomfortably. "Well, you see… it's a thing he has to do for school, and my wife couldn't take him, because she's, um… she's in surgery at the moment."

"Nothing serious, I hope?" Halton inquired, blandly, his voice showing as much concern as it might if he was discussing different shades of whitewash.

"I'm sorry." John said, quickly. "I, er… I mean that she's working in the surgery. Not that she's having it. You'll know that she's a nurse, of course; and she couldn't take Alex into surgery with her."

"Of course not." Halton's eyes slid away, as he thought. "You'll know, John, that he's in danger here."

"Yes. That's why we've dyed his hair."

"It's not an overly effective disguise. Take him to Pierce; his new assistant is experimenting with coloured contacts that change the shape of the eye. He can have some of those. What's the cover story for him?"

"A throwover from the hostage retrieval mission I last took. He's here so I can take one more statement from him, to clear up the details before he goes to British Child Services. And he's in British Child Services, rather than Polish for his own safety. Less likely to be traced."

There was a pause while Halton thought it over. "Not bad. It's water-tight, at least - Gregorovich won't tell anyone the truth, if he values his skin. Anyway: make sure this boy of yours keeps out of trouble. And if he tells anyone anything about this place, it's your job on the line, John."

"Yes. Thank you." He nodded. "I understand."

"I'll see you at three for your next briefing. It's within London, you'll be pleased to know."

John took the offered papers – presumably with information about his next mission – and left. He took a very silent Alex to his office, introduced him to his secretary as 'Oktav', explained why he was here, then led the boy into his office, and handed him a book to read. Then he immersed himself in his paperwork.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, his secretary knocked on the door. 

"Yes?" he asked.

"Um… I'm sorry, sir, but… it's Oktav." She said, her voice shaking a little.

"Why, what's he done?"

"Well, he's… you see, I'd forgotten my encoded password for password-access files, and I guess he heard me getting upset about it, because he came out, and, well… he seems to have solved the code we use for the passwords."

John was conscious of a cold breeze going through him, raising goosebumps, and giving him an uncomfortable, coiling feeling in the pit of his stomach. "But he… h-he can't have." He stammered. "He's a seven year old."

"Well, I know. But he got my password back for me, because I told him my first name. Luckily I speak a bit of Polish, and he asked me for my date of birth. If he can break my password for me, he's into all the restricted files I have access to, and he'll be able to break the passwords for all the secretaries, even – even Mr. Halton's, sir! And if he can access the things that she's got available to her…" she paused, and said, softly, "If he knows these passwords, sir, we either have to change the entire system, or…"

"Have him killed, yes, I know." John snapped. The idea of killing Alex, right now, was sounding disturbingly tempting, but was, at the same time, a horrifying and sickening idea to his father. "Look, Lucy," he said, in an attempt to be soothing. "Don't worry about this. I'll talk to Halton about it later. It's not like this isn't a totally internalised system – it can't be accessed from anywhere else in the world. This will be alright."

"But what if the nationalists who held him hostage get hold of him again?" she asked, innocently, a little crease in her forehead showing how worried she was. Lucy was an exemplary secretary, and rarely let anything past her impassive front, but this would have the entire office in an uproar. "They might get it out of him, and they've got enough clean members of their organisation to get one of them working here…"

John gritted his teeth. Alex's cover story was proving to be more trouble than it was worth. When his brat grew up, John hoped that the boy understood exactly how many years of his life he'd sacrificed on the altar of 'father-child bonding'.

John adored his son, but there were times when even his fatherly love and pride were taxed overly much, and finding out that his seven year old son had hacked into one of Britain's highest technological security systems was one such time. At that moment, throttling his son was beginning to sound almost irresistibly tempting.

"Don't worry about it." He gritted out. "I'll sort it out with Halton. Send Al… Oktav in here, would you?"

* * *

So... what do you think? Save an Author. Write a review.

LOL! ami xxx


	2. Chapter 2

A long wait, I know, but here it is! The long-awaited... well, sort of... second chapter of this story!

I hear no cheers of joy.

Dammit.

Well, here. Have a disclaimer, then read it.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, never was, never will be.

* * *

John looked down at his small son in despair. "Alex…" he said slowly. "What have I told you about not touching things?"

Alex replied with a stream of Polish that basically amounted to 'I was only trying to help' and 'what did I do wrong'. John resisted the urge bang his head against his desk.

"Al, you can't…" the phone rang, and John eyed it like it might bite him. "Just – sit on the sofa, right there, OK, Alex?" he pointed at the black sofa opposite his desk. "And keep your hands in your lap. DON'T. TOUCH. ANYTHING." Watching to see that Alex was doing as he was told, he picked up the phone.

"John Rider."

"John?" it was Halton's cool voice. "Come up to my office, would you?" John closed his eyes for a moment, knowing what was coming next. "And bring that boy, too."

"…Right. Yes. OK, I'll be there soo…" the dial tone sounded at the other end, and he put it down with a sigh. "Come on, Alex."

"_Where are we going_?" the little boy asked, in Polish, sliding off the sofa and trotting over to his father.

"To see Mr. Halton. The man we went to see this morning."

"OK." Alex nodded, perfectly happy. Looking down at him, John wondered, idly, if he had any idea what they'd done.

The thoughts were less idle by the time they'd reached the lift, and by the time the lift reached Halton's floor, he was an internalised mess of nerves. He could face down a worldwide terrorist organisation, but he was terrified of his own boss – or, more precisely, what said boss could do to the seven year old skipping along beside him.

Well, maybe not skipping. John didn't think Alex had ever skipped. Maybe the seven year old walking energetically beside him.

Something like that.

He knocked on Halton's door. _This is it_, he thought, his mind racing_, We're going to have to move again, this time to keep Alex away from MI6_._ All across Europe, thank god Alex speaks Spanish, maybe South America too, that'd be good, they won't find us in South America_…

"Ah, John." Halton's eyes weren't looking at him, though – they were fixed on Alex.

_…There might be somewhere in the States we could go – maybe I could do a deal with the CIA? See if they've got a job for a top MI6 agent… stranger things have happened…_

"I hear your son has been causing some problems for us."

…_Yep, we're all screwed._

"Look, Michael, he may have accidentally caused a bit of a problem with the computer system, what with managing to break our password code, but I'm sure he doesn't remember what he did…"

"Yes, I do!" Alex piped up, forgetting his father's earlier edict to speak in nothing but Polish. John took a deep breath.

_Twice over._

"OK, so he does remember – but it was an accident. And…" Halton didn't look convinced. Those cold blue eyes were fixed on Alex, and John fought a fierce, brief internal battle against the urge to step in front of his small, innocently smiling son. "…Please don't kill him."

"Kill him?" Halton's eyes snapped up to his, coldly amused, then went back to studying Alex. "Why on earth would I want to kill someone so… promising?"

_Oh, shit._

"Tell me," the blue eyes flicked back up to John's. "Have you thought about his work experience yet?"

John frowned, minutely, reassured that his son was safe for the time being, but now a little worried about his future. "Well, he's got about nine years to go before then."

"No harm in being prepared." Halton pressed.

"Alex wants to be a footballer…"

"Yes, yes, he wants to be a footballer _now_." Halton waved an impatient hand, "But in a few years time… with the proper influence…"

"I'm not going to influence him either way."

"Oh?" Halton smiled slightly. That was never a good sign. "You've made sure that he does karate, he speaks several languages fluently already, he's bright enough to hack into our computer system, and you've brought him with you today to get a taster of what working for us is like…"

"Only because my wife couldn't take him!" John defended himself. "And he's seven years old, Michael, I'm not trying to influence him – if I could have done, I'd have left him at home!"

"But you couldn't, and he has caused us, as I said, some considerable problems."

"I'm not going to sell his future to you because he got too curious when my secretary couldn't remember her password." John said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Don't be melodramatic." Halton said, impatiently. "I'm asking for a fortnight of his time when he does work-experience, that's all, not his entire life."

"What would he be doing on this – work experience?" John asked, suspiciously.

"We'll discuss that nearer the time." Halton evaded. "For the moment – well, don't worry about the password system." He smiled again, coldly. "It was time it had an overhaul – we'd had it too long. And if a seven year old could hack into it, anyone could. After all, first name, and date of birth are hardly restricted information; if someone knew that, they could easily break our code. I'll have some of our technicians replace it."

"Thank you." John said, quietly.

"Take him to Pierce. He needs to get these contact lenses – he still looks too much like you." Halton was no longer looking at him, and John didn't say anything more as he held his hand out to Alex, and led him out the office.

* * *

There was someone already in the lift when they got there, and John almost groaned on seeing her. It seemed like someone had decided that today was the day god had decided to screw up everything.

"John."

"Tulip." He smiled tightly at her, and watched as her face softened, looking at Alex. Not that he couldn't understand people's faces softening when they looked at Alex, but he was the boy's father. He was _supposed_ to feel insanely proud of him, and expect everyone else to realise what an amazing and special kid he was.

It was sometimes rather a shock to John when people agreed with him.

But then, Alex would generally do something awful, like throwing their cat in the pond 'to see if cats can swim', and he would go from being 'such a sweet little boy' to 'that demon of a son of yours'. John rather preferred it when they got to that stage; at least then he wasn't treading on eggshells, waiting for them to realise what a horror the kid could be. The red-haired American student living with Ian had fallen for Alex in a big way, until Alex had asked her, quite casually, in the middle of a meal, whether she was 'doing' Ian. And then went on to ask her 'if not, why not'.

"And who's this?" she said, smiling sweetly, to Alex.

Alex raised an eyebrow at her. John sighed. It was going to a long journey down to the basement.

"I'm Alex." He said, solemnly, brown eyes wide. "You're Tulip?"

"Mrs. Jones, dear." She said, a slight catch in her voice.

"Then why did Dad call you 'Tulip'?"

"Adults are allowed to call each other different names." She said, her smile beginning to falter as she looked at John for support.

"C'mon, Al, it's like I call Mum 'Helen', and you call her 'Mum'. I call Mrs. Jones 'Tulip', and you call her 'Mrs. Jones'." He gave her another tight smile.

"Oh. OK."

A brief pause. John thought of it as a brief reprise.

Then, Alex piped up again. He swallowed his groan.

There were days when John wished passionately that Alex was already grown up, and thanked god that he had Helen had never had any other kids. Today was one of those days.

"Then, why can I call Ian, Ian?"

"He… he's your… He's related to you. There are different rules for relations." John said, desperately.

"Oh. Right. OK." Alex said, nodding seriously.

There was silence for a few blissful seconds, until Alex broke it, saying, "Do you have any children?" The moment it was out his mouth, John would cheerfully bashed his son's head against the lift doors.

Mrs. Jones voice wavered as she said, "No. Not any more."

"How do you stop having children? If you've already got them, I mean?"

"Well… they can get lost." She said, eyes suspicious watery.

Alex, who, though intelligent, had all the empathy of a healthy seven year old, which is to say, all the empathy of a brass candlestick, continued doggedly. "Why can't you find them again?"

"Sometimes – they get hidden by bad people."

"They get kidnapped?" Alex said, brightly, before his face fell. "But – kidnapped children always come back. They get given back to their Mums and Dads."

"Not always Al." John cut in, quickly, seeing that his colleague was probably incapable of answering, and cursing his son in several different languages inside his head. There were things which everyone in MI6 knew not to mention. Tulip Jones' children were two of those things. Alex opened his mouth to say something else, and John shook his head, eyes warning. Alex took the hint and shut up.

Tulip got out on the next floor, and John felt a guilty twinge of relief seeing her go. Knowing that her children were probably dead and – well, not buried, but dead and discarded made him feel strangely guilty for having his son with him, alive and healthy.

They managed the next few floors down to basement without further mishap, though Alex insisted on pressing all the buttons in the lift, so it would visit all seventeen floors in the building. There were going to be some pissed off spies by the time that particular journey was done.

* * *

Thomas Pierce, the head of Q section met them with a nod to John and a grin for Alex. John had unwittingly destroyed too many things given to him by Pierce for the man to really like him, but they tolerated each other fairly well.

"Rider." He nodded. "My new assistant's waiting for you. Something about contact lenses for this little fellow?" he reached out to ruffle Alex's hair. Alex, who had never been big on hair-ruffling, moved out of the way, which earned him a chuckle. "Iron-willed little boy, isn't he?" he glanced up at John. "How did you get landed with him, anyway?"

"You'd have to ask his mother about that." John said, grimly.

"Oh. A mercy case. Was the situation very bad?" Pierce threw the question over his shoulder, leading the way presumably to his assistant.

_Oh, you have no idea_.

"Pretty bad. It was the case in Warsaw I was just dealing with." John said, casually.

"What happened?"

"Oh, you know I can't tell you that." He said, swiftly. Pierce just nodded.

"Right." He said, pointing through a small doorway. "Through there you'll find my assistant. New man, very bright. Name of Smithers." He paused, and cleared his throat. "He's quite… enthusiastic, Rider. Just – just, be aware of that."

And, with that, he left him.

John steered Alex through the door, and came face to face with a tall, rather rotund man, who was looking up from whatever it was he was doing at the moment.

"Ah, Rider, old chap!" he said, standing up with a huge grin on his face, to all appearances absolutely delighted to see him. "And this must be Alex."

"Don't you mean 'Oktav'?" John asked, ironically.

"Ah, yes, of course. Oktav." He winked broadly at Alex. John was hit by a sudden sinking feeling.

Alex had just found the perfect partner in crime. A man who would not only not stop him doing any of the awful things the boy could think up, but would encourage him. This man, Smithers, would cheer him on. Hell, he'd probably give him gadgets to help him.

Today was suddenly looking so much worse.

* * *

You like?

Do tell.

lol, ami. xxx


	3. Chapter 3

OK. I _literally_ wrote this on the train home today, so apologies if it's crap! Hope you like it!

Dedicated to everyone who took their GCSEs recently - I hope, and I'm sure, that everything went well for you!

DISCLAIMER: Oh, I wish...

* * *

Smithers grinned at the little boy, then looked up at John. "So you want to try the contact lenses out?" He asked, casually.

"They're for – Oktav." John said, firmly. "Will they work for him?"

Smithers squatted down in front of the boy, and turned his head from one side to the other, examining his eyes carefully. "We-ell…" he shrugged. "They might be a little uncomfortable – they're designed for adults, after all, old boy – but they'll definitely work. No damage cause at all."

John frowned at that, and said, rather worriedly. "Damage?"

"Soft lenses, old chap." Smithers stood and grinned at him. "Don't need to worry about that at all."

"You're sure?"

Smithers nodded, without losing his grin. "Of course I'm sure." He said, expansively, "But you'll need to put them in for him, I expect."

Alex tugged on John's trouser leg, and John sighed, already anticipating some awkward question from the boy. But when he spoke, Alex's voice was soft, and a little worried. "Dad…" he said, quietly, and John immediately forge him for the slip, as Alex sounded genuinely distressed. Alex was a highly intelligent kid, but he was no actor. "Is it going to hurt?"

John knelt in front of him, and said, gently, "No, Alex, it's not going to hurt. I promise, OK? It's going to be fine. I'm just going to put something in your eye, alright? It'll make it so – so no one can recognise you, alright?"

Alex swallowed, and watched with wide eyes as John took one of the plain contact lenses out of the solution they were kept in, and looked at Smithers. He had, on occasion, been required to use contact lenses to change the colour of his own eyes, but it was a whole different thin, to put them in his son's. There was the lingering fear that he might somehow hurt Alex – a few which he admitted had been there ever since Alex was born – which made him more than a little wary of trying this.

"Just go about it as you would for yourself, dear boy!" Smithers said, cheerfully. John grimaced a little – that was no help. "You'll be fine!" the younger man said, encouragingly.

John took a deep breath, placed the little plastic disk on his fingertip, and, pulling Alex's bottom eyelid down, he placed the thing on his son's eye.

Alex blinked.

When he looked at his father, his right eye was a slightly different shape to the left one. It was – not drastic, but noticeable, certainly.

"That's amazing." John said, rather awestruck. "How the hell did you do that?"

Smithers shrugged, looking rather pleased. "It adjusts the way the eyelid sits over the eye." He said, with the air of one who was dumbing something down quite drastically. John let it pass. "It's all to do with the type of plastic, and the shape of the lens… that's a basic change you've got there – the others could possibly damage a child's eye." He smiled widely down at Alex, again. "So, your daddy'll just pop the other one in for you, and then you can be on your way.

John had just fitted the other lens into Alex's left eye – and had admonished Alex several times for rubbing his eye – when his intra-departmental pager went off. Rather fatalistically, he read the message, already having an idea of what was going to happen now.

Grimly, slipping the pager back into his pocket, he turned back to Smithers. "Look, I'm really sorry to ask this of you, but – could you just watch him for a couple of minutes?" Smithers opened his mouth – presumably to protest – and John said, quickly, "I've got to go to the sit. room, OK? I have to hand in a report, and I really, seriously, can't take him with me." Smithers nodded, looking faintly impressed; after all, everyone knew that only the top agents were called to the situation room. "I'll be back in ten minutes, OK?" he gave Smithers a rather sharp look. "_Don't_ give him anything, _don't _say anything to him, and _don't_ give him any ideas. Please."

Smithers nodded, face a picture of innocence. "Of course, old boy, He's perfectly safe with me."

John nodded, rather doubtfully. _But is the rest of MI6 safe from the pair of you?_ he wondered, rather worriedly.

* * *

On his way up to the Situation Room, he tried to reassure himself, by repeating, slowly and calmly, inside his head,

_It's alright. It's Smithers, he seemed like a nice enough guy. I could have had to leave him with Yassen. I could have had to leave him with Yassen._

Yassen Gregorovich had joined MI6 after finding out that his mentor was an agent of theirs; the pair of them often worked together still. On a mission, John trusted the other man implicitly. With his son, he trusted him no further than he could throw him.

However, despite his attempt to reassure himself, he found that he'd been expecting the explosion of screams, which came fifteen minutes later.

Like the other men who were there, John ran out the room, but he headed down to the basement, bursting into Smithers' little back room, and saying, frantically,

"Where's Alex?"

Smithers looked up from what he was doing, with a grin. "I think you mean 'Oktav', don't you?"

For a couple of seconds, John just stared at him, a little perplexed – then he remembered, and nodded, rather wildly. "Yes, yes, Oktav, where is he?"

Smithers shrugged. "I had to deal with this," he held up a watch, "You know, get it all sorted and ready for someone to take it off on active service tomorrow." He grinned. "your partner – nice man, blond, good-looking – said he'd look after him."

"Yassen?" John groaned. "I just had to say it, didn't I?" he dragged a hand through his hair, then was off and running once more, ignoring Smithers' rather perplexed query,

"Say what?"

* * *

Up on Floor Eight, where the screaming had come from, John found his son with a grinning Yassen, playing a game of "I Spy".

Glaring down at his sometime-partner, he said, firmly, "Yassen. What did you do?"

The Russian stood, gracefully, still grinning. He revered John almost to the point of total embarrassment for the older man, but that didn't mean he was any less wicked around him. "Smithers' helped." He said, voice as quiet and unaccented as usual.

"Oh, I have no doubt of that." John nodded, grimly.

"I just watched him!" Yassen said, innocently, his grin widening. "You know, you've got a hell of a son, John."

John frowned at Alex, who did at least have the grace to brush. "Yes I have." He agreed, dryly.

"It was Mr. Gregorovich's idea!" Alex said, quickly, and John transferred his frown to his partner.

"Right."

Yassen shrugged. "Never waste opportunity, John. Did Scorpia teach you nothing?"

"Very little that I care to remember." John returned, with a raised eyebrow. "Now…" he looked around at the room. "What, exactly, did you _do_ here?"

Yassen gave him a mischievous, slow-burn smile. "Well, it's a long story…"

* * *

There you go... like? loathe? say?

lol, ami xxx


	4. Chapter 4

By the lord, it's been a long time since I updated this. Here! Have an update!

This may be somewhat, um... less funny that the other chapters. (shrugs) I have a plan, my friends, a proper plan, and the steam shall be picked up next chapter.

Ahem. Yes.

Right! Dedicated, as always, to **Von** and my brother. Von gets a mention because of all the stuff she puts up with from me, and also, I'm doing this experiment for Philosphy classes, I want to find out wether I can compliment her into getting annoyed with me. :D And my brother? Well, it'd annoy the hell out of him, and that's always been a good enough reason for me to do just about anything. :P

DISCLAIMER: Yes! Yes, tis all mine, mine, I tell you, mine, mine mine!!! That, and my enormous legal fees incurred by my battle with Mr. Horowitz for those bookrights, it's all miiiine!!

(coughs) Yes. Right.

* * *

John dragged a hand down his face. "We've got time."

Yassen favoured him with his most insouciant smile. "You might have, _yogodka_," Yassen enjoyed infuriating his one-time mentor with the wholly inappropriate nickname, which, John had soon found out, meant 'little berry' in Russian, and was most commonly used between lovers, "But I have a briefing in half an hour."

"Half an hour will be plenty of time." John said, inexorable. "What. Did. You. Do?"

"Mr. Smithers helped." Alex piped up again, from his position behind Yassen, sheltering, as he was, behind the slender man, safely hidden from the parental wrath. He had been placed there by Yassen himself, in a rare moment of self-sacrifice, and, from the expression on the Russian's face, he was beginning to regret it.

"So you've said." John replied, without taking his eyes off Yassen. "So, in what way did Mr. Smithers help?"

"Well, he had these rats." Alex said, peeking out from behind Yassen, and meeting his father's eyes with an irrepressible dimpled grin. "He said – he was s'posed to practice things on them, like, sums and things." The little boy frowned for a second, apparently a little confused as to how one could practice sums 'and things' on rats, but he shook off his momentary confusion, and continued, brightly. "'nyway, Mr. Smithers said that he didn't like testing things on them, so he just kept them. For pets. And he let me play with one of them, because I told him how I didn't have a pet… and then Mr. Yassen came along, and Mr. Smithers was busy, so he said I should go with Mr. Yassen. But I forgot to put Snowy back with his friends."

John resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in favour of gritting his teeth. "Who's 'Snowy'?" he asked. He couldn't have packed more distaste into that one word if he'd tried.

"The rat." Alex said, promptly. "Because he was white. It was 'snowy' or 'reddy'. Because he had red eyes. Mr. Smithers said that was cos he was ablino."

"Albino, you mean, Alex." Yassen corrected, in a stage whisper.

"Yeah. That." He grinned up at his father.

"So you bought 'snowy' up here, and he got away, am I right?" John asked, very, very quietly.

Alex shuffled a little. "Sort of." He admitted, finally. "I didn't know that people were going to scream, though!" he added, quickly. "Mr. Yassen said that people _liked_ rats."

John glared at his partner, who simply shrugged. "Children need to learn that they can't always trust adults to tell the truth." He said, calmly.

"Not at seven years old, they don't!" John hissed. He could feel the headache to end all headaches coming on, and made a little prophecy, then and there, that painkillers were going to be involved in his near future. "And Alex doesn't need to worry about suspicion and intrigue in his every day life because Alex is _not going to be a spy_!!"

Yassen frowned, a tiny crease on his forehead, which was about the nearest he got to anything resembling a 'tell', in terms of his emotions. "Why not?" he grinned, suddenly. "I bet he'd be darling at it."

"Why's Mr. Yassen calling you 'darling', Daddy?" Alex piped up.

"_Why_ doesn't this place have day-care?" John moaned.

* * *

John didn't stay around to help clear up the situation his son had caused, though he did make sure that Alex apologised personally – and rather charmingly – to all of the secretaries, and the various other personnel, whom he had shocked. They all forgave him on the spot, gushing about how 'sweet and innocent' he looked with 'those big brown eyes and adorable little smile'. John found himself wishing, rather sourly, that Alex had had to work harder for forgiveness.

He took Alex back to his office, and sat him on the sofa with a book of fairytales he found in the backpack Helen had so-hurriedly prepared for their son that morning, and a Gameboy that went with it.

* * *

The next hour passed in blissful silence, while Alex read happily, and killed a few hours killing a few levels on the electronic toy he had literally moaned and hinted his mother into buying for him. John made a mental note to send a personal letter of thanks to 'Nintendo' for creating the otherwise-irritating gadget.

It was for that reason that, when Lucy, his secretary, handed him a memo for a meeting Halton 'recommended' that he attend – with a wary glance at Alex, against whom she had taken something of a suspicion, ever since the incident with her password – John only hesitated momentarily before nodding.

"OK." He said, slowly, "I'm on my way. Lucy, um… _Oktav_, will be staying in my office; make sure he doesn't get out, alright?"

"But you've got confidential things in your office, sir…!" she protested, worriedly.

"I've locked them away in the drawers." John said, with a small, rather tight, smile.

"I'm sure he can pick locks easily enough…" she tried, but John just frowned, lightly.

"For heavens sake, Lucy, he's a seven-year-old, not a crime lord." The look Lucy gave him suggested that, in this case, she was highly doubtful that the two epithets needed to be separated. "He's not going to go through my drawers. And even if he did, what would he do with the information he'd get?"

Lucy was obviously running through the answers to that, but caught John's eye, and nodded, quickly. "Yes, sir." She agreed, quietly. "So – Oktav – mustn't leave the office; I'll make sure that he stays safely in there."

"Thank you." he said, sincerely, before giving Alex strict instructions to behave himself, and heading up to the meeting.

* * *

The meeting overran by a good half hour, and John's thoughts had kept inadvertently wandering to his son, three floors below, and in god-only-knew-how-much trouble. It wasn't that John didn't love Alex – on the contrary, he loved him a great deal – but he was under no illusions about how much of a troublemaker his boy was, and, in his estimation, father-son bonding should be left firmly outside the workplace.

At least, that was his estimation after today.

But on the whole, he was rather confident about the rest of the day; it was lunchtime, he could feed Alex – he was sure the canteen would have something his boy would like, and if not, he could always take Alex out for a meal somewhere, for some _proper_ father-son interaction, or whatever this scheme was for… and really, how much time did that school think that busy, working fathers were going to have for their children while they were at work?

Resolutely, he forced those thoughts away, and went back to planning, in the last few 'tying-up' minutes of the meeting – a review of the new nerve poisons, and a couple of examples where they were used in the field; the subject was a source of some contention, and the aim was the make sure that it was resolved, so they could be either used or discarded – how he was going to finish the day with Alex. They could get something to eat, he could have a decent talk with the kid, something he freely admitted he didn't have a lot of time for… then, after that, Alex could settle down on the sofa and either sleep, or just keep quiet for a bit, he, John, could do some work, and then maybe show Alex around the 'safer' area of the building.

It was all perfectly safe and planned.

Because John liked to keep that certain distance between his home life, where everything, to a large extent, was now safe and planned and organised, and his work, where everything was liable to fall apart at any moment, and because Alex was a firm part of his 'home' life, it didn't seriously occur to John that all his planning might not work out along the lines he'd set out.

When the meeting ended, he left discussing the problem with Yassen, a habit the pair of them had got into over the years, a casual dissection of whichever ordeal they had most recently gone through, be it assignment, or long meeting. So Yassen was with him when he got back to his office; Lucy was working at her desk, calm and collected as usual – nothing seemed out of place. He handed her his notes from the meeting, asking her to type them up for him, and headed into his office proper.

There were papers everywhere, and no Alex to be seen.

John and Yassen exchanged glances, before turning on their heels and striding out of the office, practically in unison. Outside the door, in the corridor, with nothing more than a glance, and a quick sharp 'upper' from John, answered by a nod from Yassen, to serve as communication, they split up, each preparing to do a sweep of the building – this time, with John taking the upper floors, and Yassen the lower.

* * *

It didn't take long to find Alex, thankfully – but then, it rarely did. He was, as was getting to be the custom, surrounded by adoring and faintly maternal women, along with, somewhat bizarrely, one man, who was cooing over the 'little angel' just as enthusiastically as all of the others there.

Yassen heaved a sigh of relief – he wouldn't have wanted to explain to his partner that his seven year old was missing, they'd all seen the effects of that too clearly with Tulip Jones – and cut effortlessly through the crowd to Alex, who was looking frankly terrified at all the attention he'd been receiving.

"Oktav." He said, holding out a hand, and speaking in Polish, hoping that Alex hadn't already blown his cover. "_I have to take you back to Mr. Rider's office now_."

Alex grasped his hand readily, apparently eager to be away from all the people who had swooped down on him. "_I'm sorry I left._" He muttered, looking at the ground, slipping easily into the language switch. "_I know I shouldn't have, but it was _boring_ in the office…and the lady wouldn't play with me, she said I was a bad boy…_" he looked up at Yassen, who could have sworn he felt his heart melting into a big gooey pile of sickly sweet marshmallow gunk, as he met those enormous brown eyes. Him! A hardened assassin, spy and information gatherer! Melting under the gaze of a seven year old! But he was really undone by the next line. "_Am I really a bad boy, Mr. Yassen_?"

The little lower lip wobbled dangerously, and those enormous brown eyes filled with tears. Yassen bit his own lip for a second, willing himself not to be so unforgivably sappy, to march the boy back to John and leave him there. That was what he'd do… he take him back to John, and then get far, far away from those eyes, and the catch in that little voice, and never end up saying such stupid, sappy things…

"…_of course you're not a bad boy_." A voice he distantly recognised as his own said, and he just managed to cut himself off before he added something along the lines of 'you're a very good boy, and I wuv oo', or something equally nauseating. "_Come along_."

Alex trotted happily along beside Yassen, chattering aimlessly – thankfully in Polish – about his impromptu trips around the building. "…_and I found a secret passageway that goes all the way down to the bottom, Mr. Yassen_!" he chirped, and Yassen very nearly froze in horror. "_Did you want to see_?"

Yassen opened his mouth to answer when John appeared round the corner. "Oh, thank God!" he said, a look of relief on his face Yassen wasn't soon going to forget, and Alex grinned.

"Daddy!" he cried, and headed over to John, who picked him up and hugged him, apparently too relieved to be angry about the earlier events of the day.

Then he recovered himself, realised that he was hugging a small boy in the middle of Britain's elite Secret Service Headquarters, and put Alex down, clearing his throat, and saying, a little awkwardly. "Why was my office in such a mess, Alex?"

Alex looked up at him, and Yassen, still stood there watching, wondered how John could possibly be immune to those eyes. "Well, Daddy…" he scuffed his foot on the floor, and refused to meet John's eyes. "You'll be angry…"

"Oh. God." John sighed, casting his eyes upwards. "Why me?" he looked back at Alex, fatalistic expression firmly in place. "What did you do this time?"

* * *

(grin) Enjoy?

-ami xxxx


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